Canada is a single-payer health care system. A common problem with single-payer health care systems is access to specialty care. It is indeed tragic to care for someone you know is sick while being stuck in multi-week delays waiting for a doctor who can actually help.
It's also true that this is not one of America's big problems. Now, our specialists will bankrupt you, that's true, but you will actually get to see them pretty quickly.
Like Switzerland's system, the PPACA guaranteed-issue/mandatory-coverage system is potentially a best-of-both-worlds solution. The market for health insurance stays private, modulo federal (contentious, bureaucratic definitions of "minimum care" to qualify plans), but consumer costs are predictable.
> It is indeed tragic to care for someone you know is sick while being stuck in multi-week delays waiting for a doctor who can actually help.
It's not even waiting that is the problem. The quality is down right shoddy at best. Doctors flat out lied to us. We had doctors recommending committing our son to a home because "you can get on with your life." At one point, we had our son get approved after waiting 6 months to get into a special program that would help him. That was a wonderful day.
That afternoon, I shit you not, we get a call again from the same place, and they say "Oh, I'm sorry, we can't take him. He has autism, and we don't take children with autism."
I understand their are problems with the US system. I'm not blind to the issues. But people like to prop up Canada's system as something that works.
It was child abuse. It's hard to explain. I firmly believe that Quebec should shut down it's autism support, and stop pretending to care. At least then parents will know they had better leave. Every day makes a difference. If I'd known earlier, if I hadn't waited...
Years. Years of waiting. A system that requires that is a failure, pitiful, evil system.
It's also true that this is not one of America's big problems. Now, our specialists will bankrupt you, that's true, but you will actually get to see them pretty quickly.
Like Switzerland's system, the PPACA guaranteed-issue/mandatory-coverage system is potentially a best-of-both-worlds solution. The market for health insurance stays private, modulo federal (contentious, bureaucratic definitions of "minimum care" to qualify plans), but consumer costs are predictable.